“No matter where you come from in the state of Texas, if anybody were to back out of that (pledge), I think they would have a tough time explaining that at home,” he says.

Rep. Chente Quintanilla of El Paso is among the 64 Democrats pledged not to support Craddick under any circumstances.

However, Quintanillla was recently quoted in the El Paso Times as someone who could vote for Craddick since “Craddick is the one who knows best El Paso’s needs” – among the various GOP candidates.

And Quintanilla told the El Paso Newspaper Tree that if comes down to a Republican candidate for speaker who can’t win and Craddick, he’d probably go with Craddick.

That would be bad politics, says one longtime El Paso Democratic leader.

“If he were to renege on his promise not to support Tom Craddick and vote to re-elect the Midland marauder as House Speaker, I believe he would seal his fate as a soon-to-be former state representative,” says Don Kirkpatrick, the longtime El Paso Democrat. “It seems to me there would be widespread condemnation if Chente threw his support to Craddick who, after all, delayed funding for the Texas Tech Medical School in El Paso for several years and that cost the El Paso economy tens of millions of dollars.”

Craddick’s strong push for tuition deregulation also has resulted in skyrocketing tuition rates, making it harder for El Paso students to afford college.

And it was one of Craddick’s lieutenants who allegedly approached Quintanilla during the 2003 legislative session with assurances of funding for El Paso’s medical school if he supported a controversial tort reform measure. He didn’t vote for tort reform; El Paso didn’t get any medical school funding; and tort reform made it harder for El Pasoans to get access to the courts.

“El Pasoans do not appreciate Craddick’s meddling in our local politics and Chente’s support of the outgoing House Speaker could cost him at the polls in two years,” Kirkpatrick says. “Craddick has come under fire for the past couple of years for his antagonism towards El Paso’s economic and political interests. Although Craddick engineered the defeat of Pat Haggerty – who was quite popular among both Republicans and Democrats – for re-election from House District 78 in the 2008 Republican primary, he was unable to replace Haggerty with the disgraced Dee Margo and Haggerty’s seat went to young Democrat Joe Moody.”